Tag Archives: design

This week is quite a celebratory edition of #photofriday. It is with great pleasure I now will unveil the brand new ReClick Photo logo.

The new look ReClick Photo logo.

What do you think? This is the beginnings of great change here at ReClick Photo. I have been spending lots of time designing and mastering all the new features of the new improved ReClick Photo so please look out for the new website coming in the next couple of weeks. I will announce when its ready for launch.

A little bit of change does us all good every now and again, this is the beginning of all the changes coming so much excitement ahead. So please stay tuned!

Yes you guessed it, I was on my holidays again!! But don’t worry this trip has filled the ReClick Photo pool so much that there will be enough material to keep #PhotoFriday going for the next couple of years! As I have mention before I always shoot images in Raw Format so every image is processed individually so all these new images, combined with all the other images I have taken this year has created a vast ReClick Photo stockpile! In order to give you a tiny preview of my latest images (the rest of them you will see in the coming months) I am going to share an extremely special image of mine which captures a moment I have been waiting for all my life. Today’s #PhotoFriday image is of the Secession Building, Vienna, Austria.

The Secession Building, Vienna.

Ever since I new what art truly was, I have known about the Secession and those who created and inhabited it. All throughout my secondary school education and then later on to art school, I learned all about the great secessionists such as the Great Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann, Otto Wagner, Egon Shiele, Joseph Olbrich, Koloman Moser etc. Through time these great artists became my own personal creative heroes.

On Friday the 1st of June 2016, I finally had to chance to stand on the steps of the great Secession Building which is situated near Karlsplatz, Vienna. Looking up I was so overwhelmed by what I saw. For at least the past two decades I looked at various images of this building but to be there, to take it all in, to touch its wall with my hands was a dream come true.

Above the magnificent entrance in bright gilded lettering is the phrase which is synonymous with the secession movement “Der Ziet ihre Kunst. Der Kunst ihre Frieheit,” which translates to “To every age its art. To every art its freedom.”

These great artists believed that there should be no barrier between art forms. Their belief was in the gesamtkunstwerk or the total work of art. This means an art work encompassing all types of art forms. A great example of this is the Palais Stoclet in Brussels where every thing was designed and created to form a total work of art. From the architecture, to the paintings inside, right down to the egg cups and teaspoons.

This image, along with the others I took that day are a great reminder of the day my dream came true, and I hope you enjoy looking at the image just as much as I enjoyed taking it.

It’s that time of week again, Happy #PhotoFriday everyone! Today’s offering is an image of an abstract sculpture designed by Thomas Heatherwick installed at Paternoster Square.

The Paternoster Vents by Thomas Heatherwick.

This sculpture has a dual purpose, as well as providing a striking piece of modern sculpture for us to admire, it also serves as Ventilation for an underground electrical substation below!

If you think the name Thomas Heatherwick sound familiar, he was responsible for designing the quite outstanding Olympic Cauldron for the Olympic games held in London in 2012. I strongly recommend that you take a look at his other works, he is truly a design superstar!

If you like this image and you would like to see some more, why not take a look at my 500px profile (https://500px.com/reclickphoto) where you can licence my images for re-use!

To be truthfully I was debating right up to the moment I logged on to my blog whether or not to right about this or not, only because I thought that you might not find my first adventure in to the world of pen and ink drawing interesting. Then I thought, well why not it’s creative! Plus it would be good to get some feedback.

So here’s a little background. Ever since I could hold a pen I have doodled. Even as a child, my mother thought it best to buy rolls of lining paper instead of sketchpads as I went through so much paper (sorry rainforests!) all through school and on to art school and even now art and design has been my life, I would go as far to say as I am obsessed!

Since school I have always sketched in my sketchbook practically on a daily basis, some days offerings are better than others. Sketching is a fundamental part of a creative persons life, it is where explore new ideas, capture moments, reflect of our techniques, try new things etc. It is a sandbox for my creative mind.

I have always loved the work of Aubrey Beardsley and M.S. Escher, and have been fascinated by the way they master the power of the line and tone in monochrome.

New sketchbook

So taking a brand new Sketchbook out of its clear plastic wrapping, I opened it and look at the crisp clean blank page and pondered for a few seconds of what to do with it. The truth was, I had no idea. I started to sketch the works ink drawing right in the centre of the page and then let my mind wander allowing my pencil to create lines and shapes in a free flowing and spontaneous manner. Any one knowing me this approach is very unlike me, normally I liked a meticulous planned approach where I know exactly what I am going to go before my pencil hits the paper. Not only was this my first attempt at a ink pen drawing, it was the first time I worked totally spontaneously.

Sketchbook with chosen drawing items

In hindsight I should have took pictures of the different stages of the drawing, so I’m afraid I will just have to jump right to the end and show you the finished result.

Finished Drawing

What do you think? As a first attempt I’m quite pleased with the result. I would really love to hear what you think. In fact if you have any tips I would love to hear about them too!

Close-up of the finished drawing

I know that it is far from perfect, there are a few stray-lines, mistakes and a little irregular spacing of some of the elements, But hey, it’s only my first attempt and I’m not going to beat myself up too much. The only way to progress is to make mistakes and learn from them. The main objective in creating this title page was write a descriptive title in order to differentiate this particular sketchbook from the many others that I have. So whether I have been successful or just carried away with myself, I will let you make your own mind up about it.

So what’s next? Honestly, I don’t know. But what I can tell you is that I am going to continue on this pen and ink adventure and I will see where it takes me. What I would like to see happen is for me to become more confident in the medium and be able to produce works for you to be able to buy, as well as create elements which I can combine with my photography and Photoshop skills to create unique mixed media digital art works for you to buy. So I hope you will join me on this journey. At the moment it appears to be a little of a magical mystery tour but please hang on in there!

When I manage to create something new in my sketchbook I will share it with you, please let me know what you think!

Welcome to first in a series of Inspired By: posts in which I will share with you artwork I have created inspired by well known artists, designers, and photographers of the past. This Inspired By: post will feature an artwork created with inspiration drawn from the great Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, Alphonse Mucha.

Trained and worked in Munich, Vienna, and Paris, Mucha created a prolific body of work, but it was through his poster designs that he gained international prominence and success. The actress Sarah Bernhardt features in some of his well known poster designs as Mucha was employed by her to design costumes, jewellery, posters, and stage sets. After several successful visits to the United Sates, where he had built up a following, Mucha returned to his homeland of Czechoslovakia where he worked on a series of 20 large scale oil paintings depicting the mythology and history of Czechs and other Slavic peoples, entitled The Slav Epic.

Mucha’s poster designs predominately featured women who were beautiful idealized symbols of femininity. Their curved forms, posture, and fixed gazes evoked a powerful aura of sensuality.

With this in mind I needed an image to begin with. My aim was to find an image which reflected the qualities that the women possessed in Mucha’s original poster designs. Turning to a few stock image websites I finally found what I was looking for.

Original image.

This Public Domain image from Pixabay was perfect. The models stance and the way she held her gaze was just right, now I could begin.

Firstly I needed to decide on a colour scheme. Mucha’s work was often created with a limited, sometimes subdued palette of colour, so I decided on a colour scheme of muted yellows, pinks and blues. Mucha’s poster designs feature an abundance of natural elements i.e. Flowers, foliage etc, so I now turned my attention to source suitable images. With the colour scheme in mind I looked for images of flowers within my selected colour range. Here is a gallery of Public Domain images I selected from Pixabay to use within the work:

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Now with everything I need I now could start work. Firstly I cropped the original image and then painted out the background leaving only the models head and neck on the page. Next I moved on to arranging the floral element of the work. Opening each image I selected only the flower and copied into to my image of the model. What I wanted to create was a floral headpiece which sat on the models hairline almost like a tiara. The purpose of this was not just to add decoration to the image, it also serves as feature which draws attention to the models face.

Detail of the floral element.

As you can see I have also subdued the colour saturation of the flowers in keeping with the rest of the image. When creating an artwork, it is extremely important to think of it as a whole, each of the elements within it must work together.

Art Nouveau was one of the first styles that did not draw its inspiration from the past. It looked more to the present especially the natural world all around it. Some of its defining features included:

The whiplash motif

Elongated curved lines

The female form

Stylised Flowers and foliage

Now I turned my attention towards creating a more Art Nouveau look to my image. After considering a few options I could not decide on a way to achieve it. After taking a break from the image I came across the solution by accident. I was sitting having a cup of tea and as I sat my cup down on the table, the steam that was rising from its contents where rising into the air creating the curves lines as seen in some of Mucha’s posters. By using decorative steam/smoke in my artwork could be the most effective way to issue the image with an Art Nouveau style, but still keeping a modern feel. After a few attempts I was finally delighted with the finished outcome. Here is the finished work in all its glory:

Mucha inspired art work.

What do you think? It may not be not be a direct copy of one of his works, but I did not want it to be. My main goal was to create an image which embodied the spirit of his work, whether I have been successful or not I will leave that decision in your hands.

I first came across the work of Mucha as a teenager whilst at school, and since then he has remained one of my favourite artists. Please if you can take a look at some examples of his work, some highlights include:

Gismonda (1984)

La Dame aux Camélias (1896)

Zodiac (1896)

Rêverie (1897)

Moët & Chandon: Dry Imperial (1899)

The Slav Epic (1910 -1928)

A fantastic source of information on the life and works of Alphonse Mucha and his work is the Mucha Foundation you can visit their website at www.muchafoundation.org.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my first Inspired By: posts and please look out for more in the future. For more in formation about ReClick Photo please feel free to visit our website at http://www.reclickphoto.co.uk.